Hello, and welcome to dentalcare.com's Cariology course that focuses on epidemiology. This is part one of a 10-part series entitled Caries Process and Prevention Strategies. Oral epidemiology is the area of public health that deals with the distribution and impact of oral disease on the human population. In this course, emphasis is placed on the relevance of epidemiology to clinical practice and information about prevalence, incidence, and trends of dental caries in the United States presented. The term DMF, or decayed, missing, and filled teeth is introduced, along with variations and limitations of the DMF index and an explanation of how to calculate DMF scores.
First, we wanted to go over a couple of clinical significant snapshots. These are questions that have come up with regard to epidemiology. First, what's the practical significance of the epidemiology of dental caries? As a dental practitioner, why should this interest me?
